Review: ‘Buffalo’ed,’ in world premiere at San Jose Stage, revisits role of black soldiers sent to fight in Philippines

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Alexandria Diaz de Fato as Madrid in San Jose Stage Companyproduction of "Buffalo'ed." Photo by Dave Lepori/San Jose Stage.

The San Jose Stage production of "Buffalo'ed" features Daniel Redmond, left, Clinton Derricks-Carroll and Adrian Roberts as Buffalo Soldiers who desert and join the Filipino revolutionaries in their fight for freedom. Photo by Dave Lepori/San Jose Stage.

Fierce women warriors fly out of the darkness with their blades ablaze, ready to fight for their homeland, in “Buffalo’ed.”

A legion of dancers, elegantly choreographed by Alleluia Panis, soar through the air, creating a potent mashup of battle and ballet. Ethereal and deadly, the dancers take flight even when the narrative bogs down in Jeannie Barroga’s dense historical-political drama at San Jose Stage.

The playwright has a noble aim — to reveal the untold story of the Buffalo Soldiers, African-American men dispatched to fight in the Philippines, who often found themselves at cross purposes with history. Barroga attempts to deconstruct a thorny tangle of issues, including race, colonialism and greed, in her ambitious epic. But the unwieldy narrative overreaches its grasp, and her passionate, compelling point of view on the plight of these soldiers and the people they were sent to subdue doesn’t yet come through clearly enough in this world-premiere production.

Director Anthony J. Haney coaxes intensity from the cast, but the complex, intertwined plot threads remain muddled, as the fate of the soldiers, natives and officers unfold. At its core, the show may be more of a history lesson than a play, and Barroga certainly succeeds at shedding light on this little-known chapter in American and Filipino history. But a didactic tone tends to obscure the human tragedy.

The soldier Fagen (Clinton Derricks-Carroll) — who went on to become a famous insurrectionist, joining forces with the natives against the American troops — is at the heart of the parable. Clad in a dapper top hat, Fagen often addresses the audience with meta-theatrical speeches on manifest destiny or minstrel shows. It’s a bracing technique but doesn’t quite fit the tone of the rest of the drama, though the actor attacks each speech with vigor.

Fagen and his fellow soldiers must dig ditches for latrines and take turns as canon fodder, while the entitled white officers carry out the plum assignments. The captain (David Arrow), a racist scoundrel, takes great pleasure in setting one breed of “savage” against another. A pompous cad, he drinks tea and crafts his memoirs while villages are pillaged, children slain and women raped, all in the name of freedom.

Despite his smug sense of superiority, he falls prey to the charms of Dona Luisa (an exuberant turn by Amielynn Abellera), a rebel general posing as an aristocratic lady of leisure. She soon rouses the sympathies of the African-American men serving under the captain. Shocked by the atrocities they must to commit, Fagen and his pals — the smart-alecky Woody (Daniel Redmond) and the stolid Linc (a formidable Adrian Roberts) — feel caught between two worlds. They are Americans, but while they never felt welcome in their own country, they feel strangely at home in this faraway land.

Make no mistake, this compelling subject matter illuminates the forces shaping global politics then and now. But the “Buffalo’ed” narrative lacks the emotional firepower it should have. Though buttressed by history truth and fascinating archival photos projected onto the stage, the characters never seem as three-dimensional as they should, and the dialogue falters under the weight of an ornate poetic sensibility. The plot touches on too many themes for any of them to hit as hard as they should.

To be sure, there are some lovely moments: Elizabeth Carter shines as Linc’s long-suffering wife Della, who doesn’t understand why he is helping enslave foreigners in their own country so soon after his own people were freed. The letters between them provide some of the show’s best emotionally grounded moments.

Ultimately the most eloquent images in this tale of revolution are sculpted in muscle and sinew, not language. When the dancers wield their bodies like weapons, “Buffalo’ed” is at its sharpest.

Karen D’Souza is a writer for the Bay Area News Group papers, covering healthy living, Bay Area culture and other lifestyle topics. She is a four-time Pulitzer juror, a former USC/Getty Arts Journalism Fellow and a longtime member of the Glickman Drama Jury and the American Theatre Critics Association. She has a Master's Degree in Journalism from UC Berkeley.

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